


An Elephant's Journey

by Rocking_Unstable



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bulimia, Eating Disorders, F/M, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28284114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocking_Unstable/pseuds/Rocking_Unstable
Summary: Harry's hit rock bottom when he collapses and is brought to a muggle hospital. Here he meets Alice, a kind muggle psychologist. She recognizes him and offers her help. Harry accepts figuring he has nothing left to lose. He did not, however, count on her snarky black-haired husband. Trigger Warning: eating disorder!!!





	1. Falling Hard

**Author's Note:**

> Hey,
> 
> Before you read a quick important note. I do love reviews and I'm a firm believer in well meant tips for the story to be better. However, I really get demotivated by it. So no matter how well meant. Please sent only positive feedback until I say I'm ready for anything else. Otherwise I probably won't finish this story because of perfectionism getting in the way. Having said that: enjoy!

Harry sighed while walking around the neighbourhood yet again. Sometimes he wished he could just relax. He was tired, he was hungry and he felt fucking weak. And, of course, he needed a break to fight off the dizziness every once in a while, so that wasn’t exactly improving his mood either.

But he needed to keep walking. He knew that he had eaten way too much just now. And there was no way everything had come out. And so he kept walking on his shaky and tired legs. He wanted to lose weight. No, he needed to lose weight. He was disgusting!

And so he kept going. Every time he considered going home to give his tired body some rest, he remembered the stretchmarks on his belly. He thought about the way his fatrolls jiggled when he walked. He thought of his shirt rising up to show just how fat he was because it had become too small to cover his full stomach.

And so he sighed and kept going. Even though his thighs hurt from rubbing against each other in his too small sized jeans. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were chafed to the point of bleeding down there. He kept going. Even though feet had blisters on top of blisters as big as his thumb. He walked on with a sore throat that desperately wanted water to ease the ache caused by stomach acid, bowels that were cramping with constipation and a heart racing like he was flying against a Hungarian horntail again.

He kept going until the next dizzy spell hit and he suddenly found his vision narrowing, his ears ringing, his legs giving out and his mind going blissfully blank.


	2. Hitting Rock Bottom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Thanks for reading. I’d like to point out that I prefer not to receive feedback other than compliments. Not because your feedback wouldn’t be appreciated but because I have found that feedback works (sadly) totally demotivating for me and I’d really like to finish this story or at least make it to 20k. Secondly I’ve decided not to look up how the English health care system works. I’m going to pretend it works the same to the Dutch healthcare system for the parts I’m familiar with. Otherwise I’m going to make it up. Oh and just for who’d like to know. Harry is 20 years old in this fic. And most things happened pretty similar to canon. Oh and Harry actually is at the high end of the overweight range. He is NOT a skinny anorexic. Rather someone who would be diagnosed with EDNOS/OSFED. And he would still sooner be a bulimic than an anorexic. Why? Because if you see an eating disorder story it’s most often someone with anorexia while bulimia and BED are more common. And EDNOS is even more common than those two. So I thought: let’s write about it.

Harry woke up to someone’s hand at his throat. He flinched back while his eyes slowly fluttered open and the hand removed itself. He slowly sat up and noticed a thick coat on top of him that slowly fell away.

“Nice and easy sir. The ambulance is on its way. You will be just fine.” A pair of kind brown eyes looked at him with concern.

When Harry looked around he saw and old lady standing by her door on the other side of the street. A toddler tried to stop and look around to see what was going on while its mother admonished it to keep walking because it was impolite to stare. 

There were a few other people too. Harry was just considering how to get out of this sticky situation when the ambulance arrived.   
After 10 minutes of arguing with the paramedics that he was fine and considering how to get out of this sticky situation, while they took his blood pressure, pulse and shone a light into his eyes among other things, he was taken onto the stretcher and taken to the hospital in the ambulance. 

Harry decided to let it be. He didn’t really have the energy to protest at this point anyway. And there was no way to spell his way out of the situation without alerting the ministry. He’d take a muggle hospital over a front page picture of him at saint mungo’s any day.

After arriving in the hospital he was seen by a muggle doctor who took him trough a few tests which Harry underwent dazedly. 

When the healer left the nurse wanted to know his name and personal information.

He considered his options for a moment before answering: “Harry.”

“Harry who?”

“Harry, just Harry ma’am.”

The nurse must have seen something in his face, because she closed her mouth and turned around.

Harry had decided to wait until the night came before he’d get out of there. And so he snuggled under the blankets finding them to be blissfully warm against the cold that had been bugging him a lot more than usual lately.

The last thought before Harry fell asleep was that he’d managed to keep from eating the bread the hospital had provided him with.

Harry was awoken from his nightmare by a hand lightly touching his shoulder. He was instantly awake and shot up. Disorientedly seeking his wand. Before realising where he was and that he had a middle-aged woman looking at him with concern in het kind brown eyes.

“Hello Harry, I’m Alice. I’d like to discuss a few things with you. Is that allright?”

Harry shrugged. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do at the moment.

“Harry, I’m one of the hospitals clinical psychologists. Do you know what that is?”

Harry furrowed his brow. Psyche meant something like breath or something and it was probably a study of it. He wasn’t completely sure though. There were other meanings of psyche if he wasn’t mistaken…..

“Something with the study of …. Breath?”

A quick warm giggle escaped the woman.

“Not exactly but I hear your latin is better than that of most.” 

Harry grinned back at her contagious laugh. She really had a rather disarming demeanour.  
“Psychology is the science of mind and behaviour and clinical psychology uses that knowledge to help people who are ill.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed at the not-so-kind-anymore lady. “You think I’m insane or something.” He tried to say calmly but instead his voice went slightly hysterical. Pity really.

“No Harry, I think you’re very ill. I think you don’t like what you see in the mirror and try to lose weight. I think you have been feeling weak and weary for quite a while. I think you have been walking until you couldn’t anymore. I think you sometimes make yourself puke because you feel guilty about what you ate. I think you’re thirsty and hungry but don’t dare to eat or drink. I don’t think you are insane, I think you are a very unhappy young man who has no idea how close he got to dying today.”

Harry’s face reddened and he looked everywhere except at Alice. How did she know? Surely she wasn’t a seer? And what was she going on about? 

“What…. How….” Harry stuttered before falling silent. He wished she would just say something. She didn’t. There was a silence in which he couldn’t do anything but process what she just said. After about 2 minutes of her looking at him he broke down. Because she was right. She was só incredibly right.

“Harry, there are more people that go through the same thing you do. And some of them die. They die because their body can’t handle the abuse. You came rather close to that today. If you let it be I would guess you don’t make it into the new year….”

“But how could I be dying? I’m just trying to lose some weight! Don’t you see how fat I am?”

“I’m sorry Harry. You’ve got an eating disorder. And that’s deadly.”

Harry was crying while Alice stood to close the door. 

“Now to be frank with you. I was send to try and convince you to go into inpatient treatment. And if you wouldn’t I’ve been asked to access if you are well enough to make that choice, or if you would need to be involuntarily committed….”

Harry interrupted her at hearing that. “You can’t just hold me here! I’m not crazy! I’m fine, and I can take care of myself!”

She held her and up to signal him to be quiet and listen to what she had to say.

“I’m not going to be doing either of those. I am however going to ask you to bear with me a little longer. We both know if I tried to have you committed you’d disappear in no time and you would keep doing what you do now. However, I’ve talked about it with my husband, I didn’t call you by name, I just said you were a young wizard with an eating disorder and a complicated life. Anyway, he’s agreed that if you choose you are welcome to come home with me. We would help you heal yourself. But only if you want it. He’s a wizard too and does have basic healing knowledge and healer contacts that can be discreet. I believe that together we could help. It would be though. But I don’t think anything you’ve done was easy and it’s never stopped you before. Please come home with me!”

“I… I don’t know. What’s the alternative?”

“The alternative would mean that I keep this to myself and your friends, Weasley and Granger if I’m not mistaken, will probably be planning your funeral or you give me permission to speak to someone close to you and inform them how they could help or at least what to look out for to keep you from dying. But the way I see it: there’s nothing much to lose, is there?”

Harry considered his options. She was right. He didn’t have much to lose at this point.

“Fine I’ll do it…”


End file.
